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<title> Visual Workflow Editor</title>
 
<h1 align="center">Visual Workflow Editor </h1>


<h1><a name="tth_chAp4"></a>User Manual</h1>
<a name="ch:appendix_user"></a>

<h2><a name="tth_sEc0"></a>Overview</h2>

<p>
This product was developed under the <a
href="http://code.google.com/soc/2008/">Google Summer of Code 2008</a>
as well as it being part of as an MSc project for the University of
Cranfield.  This tool aims to provide a workflow editor for <a
href="http://www.ogsadai.org.uk">OGSA-DAI</a>.

</p>

<h2><a name="tth_sEc1"></a>Setup</h2>

<p>
The Visual Workflow Editor is distributed in two binary forms:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
As a stand-alone application or
</li>
<li>
as an eclipse plugin. 
</li>
</ul>

<p>
!!Good question, I have the two archives, a windows binary and a linux binary, but with all the 
libraries is 40 MB. I opened a target on the google code, in order to ask for the right
to upload bigger files!!

The stand-alone package is ready to be used **Where?**, while the
eclipse plugins need to be installed into an eclipse IDE. Download the
<a href="http://ogsadai-wf-vis.googlecode.com/files/ogsada-wf-vis_plugins-bin.tar.gz">
ogsada-wf-vis_plugins-bin.tar.gz</a>
and extract the plugin into the
<i>eclipse/dropin/</i> directory. Restart eclipse.
</p>

<p>
!!Added this explanation. In my opinion the user guide is for the final user, that's why I haven't
wrote any explanation about how to start the project from the sourcecode.!!

When the source code is downloaded from the SVN distribution, once all the projects 
on the server have been copied on the workspace, there is the necessity to add to the workspace 
a project containing all the libraries. This project in not on the SVN, and can be downloaded from
the project <a href="http://ogsadai-wf-vis.googlecode.com/files/gsoc.ogsadai.plugin.librarywrapper.rar">web-site</a>
and then imported in eclipse using the Import Project feature.

**Nicola how would you do this from the source distribution? If
someone downloaded the files from SVN how would they get it 
running thus?**
</p>

<h2><a name="tth_sEc2"></a>Execution</h2>

<p>
!!
Running the stand-alone application is straightforward. Using the linux binary, double click
on the VisualEditor file, or execute it from the console. Using the windows binary, double click
on the VisualEditor.exe file. 
  **How?**
</p>

<p>
To execute the editor inside eclipse a new eclipse project has to be
created (if this is not already present). !! **Enough for
what?** Select from the <i>File-&#62;new</i> menu new a Workflow
Diagram file, as shown in <a href="#fig:wizard1">Figure&nbsp;1</a>.
</p>


<center>
<a name="fig:wizard1">
<img src="gfx/wizard1.png" alt="gfx/wizard1.png" /><br/>
<center>Figure 1: Workflow diagram Wizard</center>
</a>
</center>

<p>
!!yep, you are right :)
Once the application **Do you really mean project? Should this not be
application?** is launched then there is no further difference between
the plugin and stand-alone versions of workflow editor. The screen
should look like the image show in <a href="#fig:empty">Figure&nbsp;2</a>.
</p>

<center>    
<a name="#fig:empty">
<img src="gfx/empty.png" alt="gfx/empty.png" /><br/>
Figure 2: Screen shot of an empty diagram</center>
</a>
</center>

<h2><a name="tth_sEc3"></a>Diagram creation and execution</h2>

<p>
The first step to follow while creating a workflow diagram is to
specify an OGSA-DAI server. This task can be carried out, through the
Configuration tab, that is displayed when the main panel is selected,
as shown in <a href="#fig:properties">Figure&nbsp;3</a>.
</p>

<center>    
<a name="fig:properties">
<img src="gfx/properties.png" alt="gfx/properties.png" /><br/>    
Figure 3: OGSA-DAI server URL property
</a>
</center>

<p>
Adopting well known mechanisms (such as drag-and-drop, a palette tool
and copy-paste) the composition of a new diagram should be straight
forward even for Microsoft Windows users. **OK, BIG piece missing 
here - you specify the server but how does the population palette get 
populated? Screen shot might be useful**
!!The palette is not populated. There are a fixed number of buttons, that allow to compose the wf.
The Resources and the Activity Name is fetched dynamically!! 
</p>

<p>
A detail worth to be described is how a diagram can be deployed, which
can be considered not enough user friendly. Once a diagram has been
composed, to execute it it's required to select an option in a popup
menu that is displayed after right clicking on the diagram panel, as
shown in <a href="#fig:deploy">Figure&nbsp;4</a>.
</p>


<center>    
<a name="fig:deploy">
<img src="gfx/deploy.png" alt="gfx/deploy.png" /><br/>
Figure 4: Diagram deployment
</a>
</center>


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